Growl devs respond to Mountain Lion’s Notification Center

The developers of the Growl notification framework have issued a statement in …

The next version of Mac OS X, codenamed Mountain Lion, was revealed last week. The update, which is still under development and is expected to arrive this Summer, brings a number of prominent features from Apple's iOS mobile platform to the desktop. One of the most significant iOS features that will land on the Mac in Mountain Lion is an integrated platform-wide notification system.

Applications will be able to display notification bubbles to the end user with relevant information. An aggregated view of recent notifications is available through a panel that slides out from the right-hand side of the screen. This is a welcome feature that's long overdue on the desktop, but it raises some questions about the fate of Growl, a third-party notification system for Mac OS X that is widely supported by popular applications.

The developers behind Growl recently did a major overhaul of the tool and launched it in the Mac App Store, where it quickly became one of the most popular paid apps. They have added a number of features beyond the core notification bubble capability, including a notification history window that serves the same purpose as the Notification Center panel.

Will the significant overlap in functionality make Growl redundant when Mountain Lion emerges? The Growl developers don't think so. In a blog entry posted over the weekend, they responded to Apple's unveiling of the Notification Center and explained why they think that Growl still has a role to play.

The most significant point they raise is that the Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store. That means many popular applications that are distributed through other channels will potentially not have access to the feature. Growl, which is currently sold through the Mac App Store, will theoretically be able to integrate with the Notification Center and provide a bridge through which outside applications can access the platform's native notification system.

The Growl developers also pointed out in their blog entry that some of Growl's more sophisticated features and customization options won't be supported by Apple's built-in notification system. Growl will still be useful to users who want more flexibility over how notifications are displayed. It's not clear, however, whether that advantage will hold up over time if application developers increasingly choose to support the platform's notification system and not Growl.

Despite the prospect of having to compete with Apple, the Growl developers still seem optimistic. They are continuing to work on new versions of the software—Growl 1.4 is currently in beta and a 2.0 version is under development.

Could Growl be used as a bridge to the Notification Center, though? If yes, than they’ll stay just as relevant, especially if they allow setting Notification Center forwarding per app.

They won't stay just as relevant. Apple will have put them out of business by 2015. It won't matter though, since MacOS will be dead by 2017 or so.

The app store model - Apple taking a cut of all software sales - will cause the apple software ecosystem to dry up - with most developers moving to Windows. Apple, which by then will only have 4-5% of revenue coming from Mac, won't bother to save it. By 2018-2020 or so, Apple will have completely migrated to iOS gadgets.

"Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store"

This is where it starts folks. First they'll restrict functionality to non-Store programs. Then they'll make it harder and more awkward to install these programs. Finally, in a few version of OS X you'll only be able to install apps from the App Store, just like you have now in iOS. By using the TPM chip and the EFI firmware in all their computers, they certainly have the capability to do something like this (perhaps even preventing Macs from booting Windows or Linux).

Apple are unlikely to remove existing functionality from non-appstore software, at least for now. They can just restrict new features to the appstore and achieve much the same effect with less fallout.

"Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store"

This is where it starts folks. First they'll restrict functionality to non-Store programs. Then they'll make it harder and more awkward to install these programs. Finally, in a few version of OS X you'll only be able to install apps from the App Store, just like you have now in iOS. By using the TPM chip and the EFI firmware in all their computers, they certainly have the capability to do something like this (perhaps even preventing Macs from booting Windows or Linux).

I really hope they don't though.

Only the first generation of intel macs contained a TPM chip and EFI has nothing to do with anything here. It would be like saying my BIOS won't let me install firefox.

There's been a bit of confusion about the new notifications API (NSUserNotification) and whether or not it's available to applications not in the Mac App Store. Local notifications using the new API are available to third party apps regardless of their distribution model (they don't need to be in the Mac App Store). Push notifications on the other hand currently require that the application is distributed only through the Mac App Store.

Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store

Whoah.

I must've missed that.

So Apple's official policy is that the source through which you acquire an app will dictate what functionality the OS makes available to that app?

Damn.

That crosses a line. In fact, that's so incredibly wrong that it's not like Apple just stepped over the line there - they flew over it in a corporate jet, and probably weren't even aware that the line was there. They're now so far away from the line that the curvature of the earth prevents them from seeing it anymore...

A few years ago I almost switched to Apple. Having read that one line, I'm pretty glad I didn't.

The funny thing is that I haven't seen more protest on this. If Microsoft said "well, we've decided to restrict features based on whether you buy it from $anywhere or buy it from us and we get our cut...", the IT world would be alight by now. This would be immense. It would be the kind of bad PR that kills products.

Yet I get the feeling that because it's Apple, it'll be rationalised away as being "best for the user", on some flimsy pretense.

Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store

Whoah.

I must've missed that.

So Apple's official policy is that the source through which you acquire an app will dictate what functionality the OS makes available to that app?

Damn.

That crosses a line. In fact, that's so incredibly wrong that it's not like Apple just stepped over the line there - they flew over it in a corporate jet, and probably weren't even aware that the line was there. They're now so far away from the line that the curvature of the earth prevents them from seeing it anymore...

A few years ago I almost switched to Apple. Having read that one line, I'm pretty glad I didn't.

The funny thing is that I haven't seen more protest on this. If Microsoft said "well, we've decided to restrict features based on whether you buy it from $anywhere or buy it from us and we get our cut...", the IT world would be alight by now. This would be immense. It would be the kind of bad PR that kills products.

Yet I get the feeling that because it's Apple, it'll be rationalised away as being "best for the user", on some flimsy pretense.

I think as far as notifications go, the fact that Apple handle the processing and delivery of messages means they're unlikely to want to open it up for anyone to use without ensuring that the usage meets some quality criteria.

Imagine if any app could route messages through their system, notification centre could become a nightmare of spam, phishing, social engineering attacks.

What I think the Growl team needs to do is work WITH Mountain Lion and bring Notification Center notifications to apps that don't support them.

They're already on the App Store and have a license so they'll be allowed to support notifications. So what they should do is have an option for Mountain Lion to send all Growl notifications into NC. With a bit of work they could even make them distinguish each other by app in the list.

This would be the best idea to go with. In fact, just make the Notifications Center option a separate Growl style so we can continue using older style Growl notifications for apps like Bowtie and other iTunes "What's currently playing" apps, but use the NC version for other apps.

Hear me, Growl team? Don't lose heart! Since not all apps will support NC, this will be your chance to help get them into the next generation by bridging the gap!

I'll still be using Growl for certain things like Hardware Growler (Since it doesn't make much sense to queue those notifications in a center. Who cares if I disconnected my USB drive 5 hours ago? That's only needed in the moment, not later on.) but I will embrace Notification Center. So having both work together would be a perfect harmony.

Thanks Mat79. That helps clear things up. Making push notifications available to Mac App Store apps only makes much more sense. Local notifications open to every app. @PhillipStorry: what are you going on about, now?

What exactly happened to Growl? I never understood. I just remember it turning into nagware to get me to buy it and becoming completely dysfunctional. Think it may have had to do with Lion upgrade or something, but the app never explained so I kept putting off dealing with it. As soon as I heard about notifications in Mountain Lion, I uninstalled the nagging. I feel for the devs because it's hard work and often thankless, but the transition was horribly botched.

It's not impossible for Growl to survive, though. Just like the iOS reminders app brings awareness to other more feature rich apps of the same basic purpose, Mountain Lion notification could end up being a boon to notification apps that can offer some significant improvements. The key is in how important the improvements are and to how many people.

Could Growl be used as a bridge to the Notification Center, though? If yes, than they’ll stay just as relevant, especially if they allow setting Notification Center forwarding per app.

They won't stay just as relevant. Apple will have put them out of business by 2015. It won't matter though, since MacOS will be dead by 2017 or so.

The app store model - Apple taking a cut of all software sales - will cause the apple software ecosystem to dry up - with most developers moving to Windows. Apple, which by then will only have 4-5% of revenue coming from Mac, won't bother to save it. By 2018-2020 or so, Apple will have completely migrated to iOS gadgets.

Or maybe not... but either way, Growl is screwed.

You should tell all of those developers currently in the MAS making more money than ever that! (see pixelmator for one)

What kind of push notification support does Mountain Lion support for MAS apps? Push to iOS devices or what? Never heard about that part until now, and it seems entirely fair then for Apple to take their cut if the notification rides their infrastructure.

MacOS will be dead by 2017 or so. By 2018-2020 or so, Apple will have completely migrated to iOS gadgets.

This 'plan' seems to have a huge, gaping hole in it. How exactly will the media and apps be produced that serve the iOS platform if there aren't any professional Apple users or developers? Or do you think Apple's plan is to become dependent on Microsoft and Windows? No one - and Apple in particular - would ever see that as a viable solution.

I don't know how many times Apple have to repeat its real plan for the message to sink in. SJ compared it to vehicles on the road - the vast majority are private motorcars. Most people don't want or need a truck or tractor, but that doesn't mean the market for those vehicles isn't absolutely essential. In the same way, the vast majority don't want or need a general-purpose computer. Apple's intention is to deliver products to that market (because they haven't genuinely existed until the iPad), but it fully recognises that professionals do need computers and that Apple is dead without them.

Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store

The funny thing is that I haven't seen more protest on this. If Microsoft said "well, we've decided to restrict features based on whether you buy it from $anywhere or buy it from us and we get our cut...", the IT world would be alight by now. This would be immense. It would be the kind of bad PR that kills products.

Nah nobody will get outraged at that. Pretty much everything on iOS comes through the App store already. Windows 8 Marketplace is the exclusive way to buy apps on ARM Windows 8. The Mac App store will soon dominate the software side of the Macs. It's the commodisation of the PC.

What kind of push notification support does Mountain Lion support for MAS apps? Push to iOS devices or what? Never heard about that part until now, and it seems entirely fair then for Apple to take their cut if the notification rides their infrastructure.

In my understanding, FaceTime has been using Push notification since launch, and apple now just expand it for use to all the apps in app store.

Both Windows and OS X need a decent consistent notification system that applications can hook in to.

Hopefully now that Apple have one, Microsoft will copy it too - once they've finished messing around with the start menu.

I don't think they will copy it, because they already have a notification system for Windows 8. The start screen doubles as a notification center. Each app can notify you by updating its tile. For temporary / non-persistent notifications, there is support for "toast" notifications.

So the proper way to notify in Windows 8 is to send a toast notification and update the app tile, in case the toast notification is missed by the user.

You can receive notifications not only from local apps, but also remotely (think notifications pushed by a cloud service to update the tile corresponding to the cloud app).

This may not be ideal for everyone, but a similar system works quite well on Windows Phone.

"Mountain Lion notification functionality will only be available to applications that are sold through the Mac App Store."

This is news to me. And this is big news- It's the most impactful software policy on the Mac Apple has *ever* made. Previously, the biggest issue was using unsupported APIs- Okay, so your software can break, but it can be fixed in the next version. And then there's digital signing- But as I understand it devs *don't* need to give Apple a cut to have their software digitally signed *AND* users can still choose to run non-signed apps with ease. But officially allowing some features to preferred third-parties while denying them to other third-party software is, as much as I'm aware of, unprecedented for Apple- And quite troublesome.

I've been cautiously optimistic over the concerns of the paranoid who believe Apple is out to lock-down the Mac, but now I am truly starting to worry.

As for Growl, the writing is on the wall. The percentage of Macs with growl installed will decline dramatically after Mountain Lion debuts and it will not survive beyond perhaps a niche application- and even this is suspect, as Growl has no stand-alone functionality like a word processor or a game- it's very function is to serve as infrastructure which is being duplicated and replaced by an officially supported and sanctioned solution.

On the one hand, Apple should treat their software developers better- Growl has enriched the Mac experience for many years (at least for me). On the other hand, the Growl devs must have been aware of how badly Apple treats their best share/freeware devs, considering the history there.

MacOS will be dead by 2017 or so. By 2018-2020 or so, Apple will have completely migrated to iOS gadgets.

This 'plan' seems to have a huge, gaping hole in it. How exactly will the media and apps be produced that serve the iOS platform if there aren't any professional Apple users or developers? Or do you think Apple's plan is to become dependent on Microsoft and Windows? No one - and Apple in particular - would ever see that as a viable solution.

I don't know how many times Apple have to repeat its real plan for the message to sink in. SJ compared it to vehicles on the road - the vast majority are private motorcars. Most people don't want or need a truck or tractor, but that doesn't mean the market for those vehicles isn't absolutely essential. In the same way, the vast majority don't want or need a general-purpose computer. Apple's intention is to deliver products to that market (because they haven't genuinely existed until the iPad), but it fully recognises that professionals do need computers and that Apple is dead without them.

I'd bet Apple is (and will continue to) pushing to merge iOS with OSX so the same software can serve all interests. If they don't ever completely converge, I think they'll come to share such a large amount of common code that the differences will only be packages that apply only to one platform or the other (for example, the iOS distribution may never contain mouse drivers or some such thing) so as to reduce the overall size of the respective installations. I think it will be similar to OSX versus OSX Server.

What kind of push notification support does Mountain Lion support for MAS apps? Push to iOS devices or what? Never heard about that part until now, and it seems entirely fair then for Apple to take their cut if the notification rides their infrastructure.

My guess (it's been ages since I touched OSX) is something like a cloud service pushing a notification to your computer.Nothing you couldn't do with a daemon, but better for the end-user (since you need only one daemon per system instead of one per application), and better for the publisher of the app (I'm guessing he can push messages by a http request to hq.apple.com/appID/userID/magicCode instead of having a ton of users ping him all the time).Anyone with actual knowledge on the topic?

Anything which makes Growl irrelevant is a good thing. The developers of it turned a great free and open source app into a buggy and annoying app which you have to pay for on the app store.

Good riddance to it.

I don't mind that they started to charge; everyone needs to eat, right? However, when a developer does make that leap, they better have all of their ducks in a row, especially those about stability and compelling features so that users don't feel screwed by the change. Seems Growl screwed up on both counts. I'm personally glad I hesitated to buy when I did.

My thought exactly, and it seems to be the future focus for the developers if I interpreted their blog correctly.

Oh, please not. I don't want to keep using Growl, because developers are to lazy to implement the new Notification Center. Also i don't think Apple will allow this - why would they restrict functionality to Apple-approved apps, then approve an app which allows everyone to spam messages into the Notification Center?

I get how people are upset about not every application being able to use the API, but i guess it's a security issue.

I can't even see where this is coming from, i can't find anything on the Mountain Lion preview site. Are you confusing the Notification Center with the current Push Notifications? First thing i heard was Notifications would be restricted to Apple signed apps, as in "signed so Gatekeeper will allow to use them", then the Growl guy said in his blog it would be restricted to the MAS, and suddenly everyone jumps on that train.

I can't even see where this is coming from, i can't find anything on the Mountain Lion preview site.

It is detailed by John Gruber (Daring Fireball) in his discussion of Mountain Lion. In which he notes the loss of feature parity between the App Store and non-App Store. If continued this could force everyone into the App Store or perish due to crippled functionality. Raising serious problems for non-Apple tools and frameworks as I don't think Apple will allow App Store Apps to offer "bridge" functionality to circumvent this. Yes, this could be a watershed.

I can't even see where this is coming from, i can't find anything on the Mountain Lion preview site.

It is detailed by John Gruber (Daring Fireball) in his discussion of Mountain Lion. In which he notes the loss of feature parity between the App Store and non-App Store. If continued this could force everyone into the App Store or perish due to crippled functionality. Raising serious problems for non-Apple tools and frameworks as I don't think Apple will allow App Store Apps to offer "bridge" functionality to circumvent this. Yes, this could be a watershed.

I read that article, but he didn't mention any sources either. Yes, he talked with Phil Schiller, but the statement some functionality would be restricted to the MAS only came out of nowhere. I just can't think why Apple would introduce Gatekeeper to increase security outside the MAS, then still restrict some APIs to the MAS only. But: iCloud and Notification Center offer some deep integration into the operation system, so they might be trying to prevent developers from exploiting them as security holes.

I think as far as notifications go, the fact that Apple handle the processing and delivery of messages means they're unlikely to want to open it up for anyone to use without ensuring that the usage meets some quality criteria.

Imagine if any app could route messages through their system, notification centre could become a nightmare of spam, phishing, social engineering attacks.

I think as far as notifications go, the fact that Apple handle the processing and delivery of messages means they're unlikely to want to open it up for anyone to use without ensuring that the usage meets some quality criteria.

Imagine if any app could route messages through their system, notification centre could become a nightmare of spam, phishing, social engineering attacks.

Yeah..because that is what is happening to growl right now :/

That's different. A native Notification System will attract a lot more trouble. It's also deeper integrated with the OS, making it potentially more dangerous.

I can't even see where this is coming from, i can't find anything on the Mountain Lion preview site.

It is detailed by John Gruber (Daring Fireball) in his discussion of Mountain Lion. In which he notes the loss of feature parity between the App Store and non-App Store. If continued this could force everyone into the App Store or perish due to crippled functionality. Raising serious problems for non-Apple tools and frameworks as I don't think Apple will allow App Store Apps to offer "bridge" functionality to circumvent this. Yes, this could be a watershed.

I read that article, but he didn't mention any sources either. Yes, he talked with Phil Schiller, but the statement some functionality would be restricted to the MAS only came out of nowhere. I just can't think why Apple would introduce Gatekeeper to increase security outside the MAS, then still restrict some APIs to the MAS only. But: iCloud and Notification Center offer some deep integration into the operation system, so they might be trying to prevent developers from exploiting them as security holes.

I suspect the issue is more that iCloud and Notification Center involves Apple’s own server farm infrastructure. So apps that have access to that are using, and thus have the potential for abusing Apple’s own computing resources.

They won't stay just as relevant. Apple will have put them out of business by 2015. It won't matter though, since MacOS will be dead by 2017 or so.

The app store model - Apple taking a cut of all software sales - will cause the apple software ecosystem to dry up - with most developers moving to Windows. Apple, which by then will only have 4-5% of revenue coming from Mac, won't bother to save it. By 2018-2020 or so, Apple will have completely migrated to iOS gadgets.

Open != Free. The fact that you can go to that site and access the raw source code means it is, in fact, open. If you had the gumption, you could download that code, compile it, and have your own free version of Growl, sticking it to the "man".

If you are against this sale of open-source code, then you should practice what you preach and never use any commercial product that uses OSS (even when used legally within the license). If you are running Mac or Windows, you (ostensibly) paid for products built on open source software (the kernel and large parts of the UNIX subsystem on Mac OS X, parts of the networking stack and other assorted code on Windows). So unless you are running a fully OSS-blessed Linux distro or other fully free OS, your point just comes across as "I want free stuff", which is understandable and perfectly valid, but should not reflect on the validity of Growl as an OSS project.

I think as far as notifications go, the fact that Apple handle the processing and delivery of messages means they're unlikely to want to open it up for anyone to use without ensuring that the usage meets some quality criteria.

Imagine if any app could route messages through their system, notification centre could become a nightmare of spam, phishing, social engineering attacks.

Yeah..because that is what is happening to growl right now :/

That's different. A native Notification System will attract a lot more trouble. It's also deeper integrated with the OS, making it potentially more dangerous.

Possibly, but coupled with Gatekeeper, it may not be as onerous as you fear. It looks to me like Growl may go the way of many great one-trick ponies assimilated into the Mac OS over the years. Software Darwinism, Apple style.